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Lot Essay
Considered a great artist by his contemporaries, Jan Frans van Bloemen, also known as L'Orizzonte produced some of the finest classical landscape painting in Rome during the first half of the eighteenth century.
Brother of the painter Jan van Bloemen, L'Orizzonte was also related to Gaspar van Wittel, called Vanvitelli, who was the godfather of his first child. Although patronized by the Roman aristrocracy of the time, L'Orizzonte's career was marred by prolonged confrontation with the Accademia di San Luca, to which he was finally accepted at the age of 80.
L'Orizzonte was inspired by the beauty of Rome and the surrounding campagna which was also depicted in the work of Gaspard Dughet whom he admired. With the Flemish landscape tradition as his foundation he easily absorbed Dughet's dynamic and analytic style, producing such works as Landscape with Ruins, Nocturnal Landscape and the Storm (all Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, Rome). Some of L'Orizzonte's views, painted at the end of the seventeenth century, anticipate the vedute of the eighteenth century and mark a shift from the classically orientated Roman landscapes of his French predecessors in Rome.
Among the painters who provided figures for his landscapes were Carlo Maratta, Pompeo Batoni and Placido Costanzi, the latter suggested by Busiri Vici (op. cit) as the artist who painted the staffage of the present painting.
When sold at auction in 1956, the present work was offered with a pendant, An extensive Italianate landscape with a view of Castel Savelli, now in Castel Savelli, Albano Laziale (see Busiri Vici, op. cit., no. 287).
Brother of the painter Jan van Bloemen, L'Orizzonte was also related to Gaspar van Wittel, called Vanvitelli, who was the godfather of his first child. Although patronized by the Roman aristrocracy of the time, L'Orizzonte's career was marred by prolonged confrontation with the Accademia di San Luca, to which he was finally accepted at the age of 80.
L'Orizzonte was inspired by the beauty of Rome and the surrounding campagna which was also depicted in the work of Gaspard Dughet whom he admired. With the Flemish landscape tradition as his foundation he easily absorbed Dughet's dynamic and analytic style, producing such works as Landscape with Ruins, Nocturnal Landscape and the Storm (all Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, Rome). Some of L'Orizzonte's views, painted at the end of the seventeenth century, anticipate the vedute of the eighteenth century and mark a shift from the classically orientated Roman landscapes of his French predecessors in Rome.
Among the painters who provided figures for his landscapes were Carlo Maratta, Pompeo Batoni and Placido Costanzi, the latter suggested by Busiri Vici (op. cit) as the artist who painted the staffage of the present painting.
When sold at auction in 1956, the present work was offered with a pendant, An extensive Italianate landscape with a view of Castel Savelli, now in Castel Savelli, Albano Laziale (see Busiri Vici, op. cit., no. 287).